The present invention relates to a computer application with a voice user interface, such as a virtual assistant, that allows a user to semantically tag a set of objects so that the user can easily navigate and selectively retrieve objects from the set.
Mobile professionals, such as physicians, attorneys, sales representatives and other highly mobile professionals often find it difficult to communicate with clients, customers, colleagues and assistants. These mobile professionals travel frequently and are not accessible via a desk phone or traditional, wired computer network. They typically employ human assistants to relay important information, maintain their schedules and filter out all unnecessary interruptions. A virtual assistant is a computer application that allows the mobile professional to access personal, company, and public information, including contacts, schedules, and databases from any interactive device, such as telephone.
One important function provided by a virtual assistant, which is also used ubiquitously by busy professionals who do not have a virtual assistant, is voice mail. Conventional voicemail systems, as well as virtual assistants with voicemail functionality, however, have disadvantages that limit their usefulness. For example, a professional, such as a physician or an attorney, is a person that many people attempt to contact throughout the day. Such persons, however, cannot for various reasons be reached directly by telephone. Thus, many such professionals have voicemail. If the professional is not able to regularly access his or her voicemail, at the end of the day, or whenever the voicemail is accessed, the number of voicemail messages may be so large so as to be virtually unmanageable because the only option is to listen to the messages one at time in sequential fashion. This can cause the voicemail user to simply abandon use of the voicemail system because the user does not have time to listen to a large number of messages one at a time. This makes it even more difficult for persons attempting to contact the busy professional, the only remaining options being to contact the professional in person, which is impractical, sending a page, sending an email or other know contact methods. If the volume of pages or emails becomes so great, the cycle is repeated.
Navigating large databases of non-messaging information, such as a contacts database is also quite cumbersome and difficult with conventional voicemail systems and virtual assistants, particularly, when the database is large and the user is attempting to access the database with a voice user interface.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,488,005 to Frantz discloses a telephone answering system that provide some limited ability for the selective retrieval of messaging information, but Frantz system has several disadvantages. One disadvantage of Frantz is that the user of the answer system is required to manually input the word or words that are to be used later for selective retrieval of the messages. Moreover, the system disclosed in Frantz is limited to retrieval of recorded voice messages. It does not permit selective retrieval of non-messaging information, such as information in a contacts database or any other electronically accessible database.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,540 to Greco, et al. discloses a graphical user interface for the display of voice mail messages and playing voice mail messages through a computer speaker. Using a mouse, the messages can be manipulated individually or in groups. The user can listen to the messages in any order at any time. A disadvantage of the system disclosed in Greco et al. is that the user is required to have a personal computer to manipulate the message information.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,469,491 to Morley, Jr., et al. discloses a telephone answering system that allows selective retrieval of the messages by dialing an operator DTMF tone to have the recorded textual messages read by the operator and/or activating the playback of the recorded voice messages by inputting appropriate DTMF tones. A disadvantage of the system disclosed in Morley, Jr., et al. is that the user is required to memorize or have access to the proper DTMF tones to selectively retrieve messages.
A solution to the above-described problem without the disadvantages of the prior art is offered by the present invention, which relates to a virtual assistant system with many discrete features, each of which comprises a separate but related invention. Thus, the present invention is a virtual assistant application with a voice user interface that employs the concept of semantically tagging electronic information, such as voicemail messages, email messages, contacts, or any other type of electronically accessible information. Messages, for example, can be tagged with information that the user would find helpful in navigating a large set of messages. The field to be tagged might be status, that is, whether the message is urgent. Voicemail messages also can be tagged based on the sender of the message, which could be determined either by automatic caller identification or by the sender stating his or her name, the delivery date of the message, or the status of the message, that is, whether it has been read. When messages are marked with this semantic information a virtual assistant is able to make use of these tags and present the user with a more organized method of accessing his or her messages.
Another aspect of the present invention is a computer based method for performing a first command via a voice user interface on information stored in a computer memory, wherein the information upon which the first command is to be performed is comprised of a subset of objects specified by the user, the subset being selected from a set of objects, wherein each object in the set of objects has an object type, at least one taggable field associated with the object type, and a corresponding value for the at least one taggable field. The method is comprised of the steps of storing the set of objects in the computer memory, receiving from the user via the voice user interface an utterance, the utterance being comprised of a first command, an object type selection, a taggable field selection, and a value for the selected taggable field, responsive to the utterance, retrieving a subset of objects from the set of objects, the subset containing at least one object, the at least one object being of the object type selected by the user, having a value in the taggable field selection that matches the taggable field value received from the user, performing the first command on the retrieved subset of objects performed on an active object in the subset of objects, the at least one active object being the object upon which the first command was performed, receiving a second command from the user, the second command to be performed on an active object in the subset of objects, the object being the object upon which the first command was performed, and performing the second command on the active object.
The object type is a voicemail message, email message, meeting request, task request or fax. The taggable field for the voicemail message type is caller""s name, callback number, delivery date, subject or status. The taggable field for the email message type is sender, delivery date, subject or status. The taggable field for the meeting request message type is sender, delivery date, subject, location, start time, end time or status. The taggable field for the task request message type is sender, delivery date, subject, due date, owner, status or percentage complete. The taggable field for the fax message type is selected from the group consisting of telephone number of the machine that sent the fax, sender, delivery date, subject and status. The taggable field value for the status field is first, last, new, old, read, unread, deleted or urgent.
The first command is count, browse, list or read. The second command is next, previous, first, last, read, get more detail, file, delete or restore.
The object type also can be a contact, wherein the taggable field is first name, last name or nickname.
Other features and advantages will become apparent based on the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and the claims.